Vasilij Vasil'evič Sokolov (1919 - 2017) versus Evald Vasilevič Ilyenkov (1924 - 1979) over #Spinoza [8]

Tot slot wijs ik in mijn blogreeks over Sokolov op een studie van mevr. Iva Manova, Assistant Prof. at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, die toen ze als post-doctoral student studeerde aan de Universiteit van Padua [Universitil degli Studi di Padova] het gedegen artikel schreef, waarin ze veel informatie over Sokolov gaf:

Iva Manova, “Interpretations of Spinoza's Ontology in Soviet philosophical Historiography in the 1950-70s” [in: Rivista di Storia Della Filosofia 71 (1): 69-91 (2016) [cf.]

Summary: Interpretations of Spinoza's ontology in Soviet philosophical historiography in the 1950-70s.The aim of this article is to bring into focus the existence of two methodologically divergent tendencies in what George Kline denotes as Soviet «Spinoza scholarships» and to draw a line of differentiation between them. In particular, it aims to define on the one hand the instrumental interpretations of Spinozism, that is Spinoza's presence in Soviet philosophy properly speaking, and on the other its historiographical interpretations, that is Spinoza's presence in Soviet philosophical historiography. The author addresses specifically the readings of Spinoza's ontology and tries to trace the process of the «emancipations» of Soviet philosophical historiography of this subject from what may be called «Georg' Plekhanov's heritages». In addition, she analyses Vasilij V. Sokolov's reading of the doctrine of substance in Spinoza and outlines his contribution to the advance of high-standard historical-philosophical studies in the Soviet Union.

Haar had ik n.a.v. dit artikel gemaild en zij, Iva Manova dus, was zo vriendelijk mij het PDF van haar artikel te verschaffen en de link naar de Russische Wikipedia-pagina, waardoor ik de juiste levensdata van Vasilij Vasil'evič Sokolov in de kop kon geven.

Er is veel aan de orde in het essay. Ik beperk mij hier tot haar schets van de tegenstelling Ilyenkov  - Sokolov. Ik neem hier - met haar toestemming (overigens zonder de verwijzingen) - twee passages, een uit het begin en een uit het eind van haar artikel, waaruit scherp die tegenstelling blijkt, waarin deze geleerden zich bevonden.

The aim of the present article is to bring into focus the existence of two methodologically divergent tendencies in what Kline denotes as «Soviet Spinoza scholarship» and to draw a line of differentiation between them. In particular, it aims to define on the one hand the instrumental interpretations of Spinozism, that is Spinoza’s presence in Soviet philosophy properly speaking, and, on the other hand, its historiographical interpretations, namely Spinoza’s presence in Soviet philosophical historiography. The analysis addresses specifically the readings of Spinoza’s ontology and tries to trace the process of the «emancipation» by Soviet philosophical historiography of this subject from what may be called «Plekhanov’s heritage».

This process took place from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s and its conclusion was marked, at least symbolically, by the following episode involving the well-known figure of the Soviet Marxist-Leninist philosopher Evald Vasilevič Ilyenkov (1924-1979), recounted by Andrej Majdanskij.

In 1965 Ilyenkov worked on a chapter about Spinoza’s dialectics for the next volume of (The) History of Dialectics5. And in September he gave a talk at the meeting of the authors of that volume with officials from the section of dialectical materialism within the precincts of the Institute of Philosophy6. […] Ilyenkov’s interpretation of Spinoza’s philosophy met with an extremely hostile reception and the upshot was that that chapter of (The) History of Dialectics was written by his influential opponent V[asilij] V[asilevič] Sokolov.

Majdanskij explains this hostile reception of Ilyenkov’s draft of the chapter in the History of Dialectics by his «chronic conflict with the Soviet philosophical establishment», which «periodically attained acute forms».

However, although Ilyenkov’s troubles with the «Soviet philosophical establishment» have been confirmed, the hypothesis here is that the main reason for his chapter on Spinoza being rejected was a different one. It seems that it was down to the kind of exposition the author wanted to use. Here is how he himself [Ilyenkov] viewed the aim of his contribution:

The task that I have ventured to take on is to expound and elucidate Spinoza so that the economist, the psychologist, the researcher of the higher nervous activity, not to speak of the logician or the philosopher engaged in the study of so-called «epistemology» or «theory of knowledge», can all see in Spinoza a generalizing-algebraic, that is a universal-logical solution to today’s difficulties […].

This does not sound as if the author planned to give a historical-philosophical exposition of Spinoza’s thought. Rather, he was trying to develop an original interpretation rich in possible theoretical implications. Whatever the theoretical validity of this reading may have been, in my opinion the History of Dialectics was not the proper place for it to be published since this volume was designed as a history of philosophy textbook (leaving aside any discussion of the «history of dialectics» as a discipline).

It does not seem very likely that in the specific case of Ilyenkov’s contribution to the History of Dialectics the point was to silence his creative interpretation of Spinozism, simply because other similar texts by Ilyenkov were published. For example, his Dialectical Logic of 1974 containing a chapter dedicated to Spinoza appeared in English in 1977, as well as in other European languages. Moreover, these foreign language editions were prepared – certainly with the approval of the political authorities by the very publishing house Progress, whose explicit mission was to present the best of Soviet scholarship to the world. It might be objected that Dialectical Logic was published some ten years after the episode at the Institute of Philosophy. However, in the mid-1960s, precisely at the time of the episode in question, Ilyenkov was one of the authors involved in the most significant post-Stalinist, Soviet philosophical project, namely the five-volume Philosophical Encyclopedia, in which he wrote about a dozen entries. Not only did these include his famous «The Ideal» but also an equally important entry – particularly with regard to the issue dealt with here – called «Substance». The fact that the drafting of such a key entry in the Philosophical Encyclopedia (in which he expounded his version of a Marxist-Leninist interpretation of Spinoza’s notion of substance) was assigned to Ilyenkov supports my hypothesis that the replacement in 1965 of his contribution to the History of Dialectics textbook with another one by Vasilij Vasilevič Sokolov marks the conclusion of the process of liberation of historical-philosophical studies on Spinoza from the «traditional» instrumental interpretations and use of Spinozism «or rather of alleged Spinozistic ideas» for theoretical ends.

This was how the historical-philosophical level in Soviet philosophers’ interpretation of Spinoza became separated from the theoretical one around the mid-1960s. The merging of the two levels, on the other hand, had been accomplished in the 1920s and had been preceded by a prehistory which is worth remembering here, though relatively well-known, in order to emphasize some key moments that would have a later impact. [p. 70 - 72]

[tot slot]

Sokolov dedicates several pages of the last chapter of his book to a critical analysis of the history of Soviet Spinoza scholarship (spinozovedenie). Not surprisingly, his analysis takes as a starting point Plekhanov’s opinions on Spinoza. Sokolov acknowledges as Plekhanov’s chief contribution his materialistic reading of Spinozist ontology and epistemology at a time when «its idealistic interpretation was strongly prevalent in bourgeois philosophy».

On the other hand, Sokolov is adamant that Plekhanov’s formulas concerning Marxism as a variety of Spinozism and the alleged presence of a theological appendage in Spinoza’s philosophy bar «the way to a real historical assessment of Spinoza’s materialism» (put’ k dejstvitel’no istoričeskoj ocenke spinozovskogo materializma)9. This defect was subsequently inherited by Soviet historiography. Sokolov, however, does not fail to stress that «by pointing out the faults in the elucidation of some aspects of Spinoza’s philosophy, in no way do we, of course, ignore the positive content of these works». Publications by Bernard E. Byhovskij, Valentin F. Asmus, Vladimir K. Brušlinskij are regarded by Sokolov as most valuable and «free of oversimplification» (lišennye uproščenčestva).

Interestingly, in this account of Soviet Spinoza historiography, Sokolov never mentions the name of Ilyenkov; nor does he make any reference to his attempt to reinforce Marxism by his return to Hegel and Spinoza. However, the same is also true of Ilyenkov, who in turn does not seem to take into any consideration Sokolov’s historical-philosophical studies of Spinoza. As far as Spinoza’s ontology is concerned, in the 1950-70s, we are faced with a strange situation, in which two parallel, contemporary, and mutually impenetrable readings are to be found in what for some twenty-five years before 1955 had been reduced to a monolithic Soviet Spinoza scholarship.

Both Ilyenkov and Sokolov, each in his own way, played a significant role in Soviet philosophical culture. Sokolov’s, in particular, was an essential contribution to the progress of high-standard, historical-philosophical studies in the Soviet Union. Or, as Evert Van der Zweerde puts it with reference to his European Philosophy of the 15-17th Centuries, Sokolov’s account of the history of early modern philosophy

not only served to improve the historical competence of future Soviet philosophers, but also made acceptable non-Soviet secondary literature. […] Sokolov’s Work [European Philosophy of the 15-17th Centuries] is based on his «many years of lecturing at the philosophical faculty of Moscow University in the classes of students and post-graduates», and someone who – like the present author – has had the opportunity to attend those classes knows that they focused on knowing and understanding main philosophical positions, carefully separating presentation from interpretation. [p.  86 - 88]

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Blogs over
Vasilij Vasil'evič Sokolov (1919 - 2017) Russisch filosoof, was in zijn tijd dé scholar van de Sovjet Unie over #Spinoza
[1, algemene introductie van Sokolov],
[2, George L. Kline over V. V. Sokolov, "Mirovozzreniye Benedikta Spinozy," (Benedictus Spinoza’s wereldvisie)],
[3, review Friedrich Rapp van V. V. Sokolov: Filosofija Spinozy i sovremennosf (The Philosophy of Spinoza and the Present Day)],
[4, Sokolov’s Spinoza-bibliografie],
[5 Lemma Spinoza, Baruch in “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia”],
[6 Vladimir Ivanovič Metlov over Sokolov],
[7, Lewis S. Feuer over zijn bezoek aan Sokolov]

Cf. website van Andrey Maidansky over Ewald Ilyenkov